The present invention concerns a microcircuit card whereof the performance can be modified after a step of personalization of the card, and a method for configuring this kind of card.
In the remainder of this document, the term “customization” (personalization) will be understood in the sense in which it is routinely used by the person skilled in the microcircuit card art, or as defined by W. Rankl and W. Effing in the document “Smart Card Handbook, Second Edition, Ed. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.” in the following terms:
“The term customization, in its widest sense, means that the data specific to a card or to a person is entered in the card. This data may for example, be a name, an address, and also includes keys associated with the card. The only thing that is important is that this data is specific to this card.”
The invention finds one special but nonlimiting application in the field of mobile telecommunication microcircuit cards such as SIM cards conforming to the GSM standard and cards conforming to similar standards such as the CDMA, TDMA or UMTS standards. In this context, the invention enables modification of the performance of a customized mobile telecommunication card already allocated to a user subscribing to a mobile telephone service.
Modifying the clock frequency of a microcircuit card before the step of personalization of the card is already known to the person skilled in the art.
This kind of process is used in particular during the phases of developing a microcircuit card, during which the cards are tested at different clock frequencies, the clock frequency of the card then being fixed before the end of the personalization process.
However, in the prior art, the performance of the card cannot be modified after the personalization of the card.
It would nevertheless be desirable to be able to modify the performance of a microcircuit card after personalization, in particular after it is sold, or more generally after it has been allocated to a user.